Note 88

The most important decisions are made not at the moment of conscious choice, but through the unintended effects of previous unconscious actions. Choice is just the surface culmination of these factors, which have been sedimented over time. Defining freedom through choice is hence empirically erroneous. Real freedom lies in the interstice of habits and tendencies.

Note 87

Existence is an infinite question. Laws govern laws. Do we lack the faculty for understanding the origin of laws? The problem is the limits in this form of thought.

Freedom

Freedom is set within an unfree world. The interplay gives rise to the fabric of life.

The only source of freedom is freedom from desires. But without desire, freedom has no value.

East or West

East or West:

Do you want to live in a culture where ideas are an instrument to well-being, or where life is instrumental to ideas, for only that can make life meaningful?

At the level of values, the trade off is between social freedom and individual well-being. But the mode of valuation differs, between valuing an idea and valuing an experience.

This is why "pragmatism" comes much more easily to policymakers in Asia, which is not for want of the ability of those in the liberal west to distinguish the proper place of ends and means (to have values and then to find the most effective means of achieving them), but because the idea itself constitutes the experience.